Amish Vinyl, CD & Tape 4 Items

Since 2016, Chicago’s Luggage has operated according to a less-is-more philosophy, tastefully shuffling spare lyrics in a song space primarily occupied by guitar, bass and drums. This sense of openness and order define Hand Is Bad, their new album released by New York’s Amish Records. Hand Is Bad arrives in succession of their pandemic-toiled 2021 Happiness EP (Husky Pants) and much like that release, the Chicago band picks their vocabulary carefully both with music and words. Michael Vallera presents guitar rotating around MJ GRANT’s airy bass rumble, and minimal, metronomic drum thud held down by Luca Cimarusti. Vallera’s more abstract and understated musical and artistic past with projects like Cleared (Immune, Utech, Touch, Digitalis), Coin (Opal Tapes) and Maar (Umor Rex and Entr’acte) find their way into the production, arrangement and recording of Hand Is Bad. Grant and Cimarusti’s musical output as Basic Cable (Permanent Records) adds a spindly post-punk edge. And it’s a definite plus to get Luggage back in at Chicago’s Electrical Audio, a place that enhances the crispness with a very distinct, unfettered mix theology. Jeremy Lemos returns as well-dialed-in engineer, recording and mixing in three days with minimal overdubs. Hand Is Bad is a tonal dream full of surprises, including the band members surprising themselves with some clear new pathways blazed since Happiness. For years there was a lot of challenging gravity going on, and for this outing it seems Hand Is Bad enhanced their own atmosphere to escape the Earth’s.

Over two days in July 2022, Michael Vallera and Lee Ranaldo improvised at 411 Kent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a cozy place that felt more like a living room than a concert hall or recording studio. The sweltering July heat cloaked the place in a layer of sweat and humidity. Nevertheless, they took it over to record material and to perform one evening, their fuzzy guitars slicing through the thick air with both the precision of a razor blade and the gentleness of a cloud. Early New York Silver recaptures the renegade spirit and excitement of those days. The album presents material culled from those improvisation sessions, which were made possible by New York-based musician David Watson, who at the time was curating the Shift series at 411 Kent. To record the music, Ranaldo and Vallera spread out throughout the area, taking over its every crevice. Their contrasting, yet similar, approaches to music offered ample space for exploration. “I really appreciate the way Lee approaches improvising because he really dives in immediately,” Vallera said. “I tend to be very measured when composing solo or in collaborations, so I enjoy following and reacting to the vocabulary Lee is exploring in real time.” Early New York Silver highlights that effortless flow. At 411 Kent, the two guitarists were in sync, lost in the world they had created together out of shared curiosity on their instruments. Their melodies tumbled and intertwined into masses that seemed to shapeshift and morph with every strum. There was no inertia—only motion, forward. That was the beauty of the Shift series, and that is ultimately the beauty of Ranaldo and Vallera’s practice: It is always traveling, always open, always changing.

This gatefold 2xLP is a combination of the group’s only two albums, consisting of one LP of Five Tread cuts plus “Cecil Likes to Dance” a never-before-released live recording from Thistle Hall (1984) and the full 1985 LP Future Jaw-Clap. This material that has been unavailable since mid-1980s. It is well documented that in the early ‘80’s New Zealand was awash with adventurous new music. Though sharing the kind of happy isolation and the DIY ethic with contemporaneous outfits like Flying Nun, South Indies and Xpressway, one band cut a decidedly different path. The Primitive Art Group, formed in Wellington, devoted itself to collective improvisation coming out of a jazz tradition. With the line-up of Anthony Donaldson (drums), David Donaldson (bass), Neil Duncan (saxes), Stuart Porter (saxes), David Watson (guitar), and originally with Pam Grey (on cello), the group’s relatively brief existence left a lasting impression on the New Zealand’s free music scene. Musically, there was no precedent in New Zealand for their combination of noise, collective playing and compositional freedom. Gary Steel from the local music rag TOM, wrote “The first time I saw the Primitive Art Group they blew my tiny mind… Great sheets of architectural noise coming at you from the stage. Where else would you see free music in New Zealand in the early 80s? You just didn't.” The band’s five-year lifespan was non-stop activity: rehearsing, touring, the creation of Braille Records (their own record label which released ten LPs), dance and theater work, appearances at music festivals, and hosting two hugely influential national festivals of improvisation at Thistle Hall, Wellington. In 1984, Primitive Art Group spent a week making their first recording, an ambitious double LP, Five Tread (Braille 001) which had only a single pressing and sold-out locally. One year later they were back in the studio making their second album, Future Jaw-Clap (Braille 002). This outing contained tighter pieces, as the band widened its repertoire with nods to broader influences and antecedents. In 1986, The Primitive Art Group gave their last concert at the Wellington Town Hall, just a half mile from Rawa House and the legendary Thistle Hall where their first shows had taken place. The band’s Braille Records’ recordings have never been released outside of New Zealand, nor have ever been available digitally. As Thurston Moore writes, “these are magic time capsule, lost-n-found recordings, previously shared only by deep-diving record collector aesthetes”. The group’s brief tenure has continued to inspire new generations of improvisers, but nothing has ever quite matched the visceral blast of the Primitive Art Group’s arrival on the scene. Every member of the group has carried on doing creative work at the highest levels: scoring films, making art, mentoring, organizing, touring and always playing.

· Gatefold 2xlp of improv / free jazz from legendary Wellington, NZ group Primitive Art Group originally released between 1981-1986 · Available on LP for the first time since 1985 · Includes one never-before released live song · Features guitar playing of NY-based David Watson who has worked with artists such as Phil Niblock, Lee Ranaldo, Marc Ribot, Christain Marclay + · Album liner notes by Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Bruce Russell (Dead C)

Verity Den is comprised of Carrboro-via-Bellingham sound engineer and songwriter Casey Proctor (Harusplex Palace, Holy Sons) with Trevor Reece and Mike Wallace. All spent considerable time in their respective and shared DIY-music communities before converging to form the group in early 2023. Casey and Trevor initially met as members of an ad- hoc improv ensemble performing tape loops, strings, and electronics as part of a multi-disciplinary series hosted on a rooftop in Chapel Hill called Attic 506. Soon after, the three shifted from long-running musical projects to focus on exploring new sonic territories together. The band operates in an ever-evolving dynamic of group improvisation and studio experimentation, capturing moments of coarse circuit completion and bringing to fruition long-gestating ideas and songs. The sound is raw and largely unadorned, transmitting both truth and wildness.

Working from a dedicated studio space in Carrboro, NC, songs came together quickly for the group’s debut self- titled album. Engineered and mixed at home by Casey, the LP presents a guitar music refracted through clamor and tenderness, static and hiss, drum machine and synth. The lyrics survey themes of existential exhaustion and impressionistic reflections, all bound with persistent hooks and equally acidic edges. A sense of deep and ego-less collaboration runs through their process, as instruments are exchanged, vocal duties are shared and drum machines meld with live drum kits. The live unit is supplemented with an expanding cast of friends and rippers, that presents the music at its gentlest and most cacophonous.